Sunday, July 25, 2010

Warning: Alien Face Ahead

We decided to take a few days off and enjoy the beaches at Cape May, New Jersey. I’ve always loved the beach. Mind you, I do not swim—unless you count the Doggie Paddle. I just love the smell and sounds of the ocean.

I was so involved in reading, Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman, a terrific book by the way, that I got a sunburned face (this happened for the first time last year when I was reading The Forest of Hands and Teeth. Guess I’ll learn one of these days). Not only is my face sunburned but it’s swollen. I look like an alien. No lie. My eyes appear to be too far apart thanks to the swelling of the bridge of my nose and my eyelids are fat and heavy and squish down too far over my eyeballs leaving me in a constant squint. My older daughter actually pointed and laughed at me. Never mind that I gave birth to her and housed her for nine months. Oh no, it doesn’t matter at all. She picked up her finger and LAUGHED! My younger daughter was a little more subtle. She asked me not to look at her because she was having trouble digesting what she saw. Apparently, I’m ugly and scary. You know what’s worse? She’s right.

At least I have a new weapon. My face. “Clean your room or I’m going to look at you!” Muhwahhhaaa!

Here's what Booklist says about Saving CeeCee Honeycutt:

Momma always told CeeCee (short for Cecelia Rose) that “being in the North isn’t living—it’s absolute hell.” Of course, having to live with Momma—Camille Sugarbaker Honeycutt, that is, Vidalia Onion Queen, 1951—doesn’t make it any more heavenly, especially when Momma starts standing in the front yard blowing kisses to passersby. You know this is going to end badly, and so it does, when the erstwhile onion queen is run over by a speeding Happy Cow Ice Cream Truck. Before you can say “sweet magnolia blossoms,” 12-year-old CeeCee is sent off to Savannah to live with her elderly great aunt, Tallulah Caldwell, and her wise African American housekeeper and cook, Oletta. It being 1967, you know there will be one dark episode of racial hatred, but it’s quickly—and conveniently—resolved offstage, leaving all the characters free to continue being relentlessly eccentric, upbeat, sweet as molasses, and living, as CeeCee puts it with a straight face, “in a breezy, flower-scented fairy tale . . . a strange, perfumed world that . . . seemed to be run entirely by women.” Light as air but thoroughly pleasant reading. --Michael Cart

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About Me

I grew up in the Red Hook houses in Brooklyn, New York. I've managed to write two books and have them published all while keeping my family happy, healthy, and well fed. Just please ignore the pile of dirty laundry. Ain't nobody got time for that.